Modern communications equipment, such as computing devices, smartphones, portable tablets, hand-held devices, laptops, mobile devices (hereinafter “devices” or “mobile devices”), often require physical protection for use in normal, industrial, extreme sport, agricultural, hazardous, and potentially explosive environments to help protect the device against drops, impacts, and exposure to water, gas, and dust. Today, there are many different types of after-market protective covers that can be attached to such mobile devices that provide some level of protection. Typically, conventional protective covers enable a user to add and remove an after-market cover to the device. After-market covers come with a wide range of protective features, ease or difficulty of insertion, and within a wide price range. The insertion process typically consists of separating the protective after-market cover into two or more sections, inserting the device into a first section of the protective cover, and then enclosing the device by attaching the other section(s) to the first section to form a protective cover or skin around the device. There are some single-body protective covers in the market that do not come in multiple pieces, but such single-body covers need to be flexible enough to enable the device to be inserted therein.
Further, each after-market protective cover is necessarily designed and sold to fit a specific device form factor. For example, though the Apple iPhone® and the Samsung Galaxy® are both smartphones, the iPhone® protective cover will not fit a Samsung®. In addition, the size and shape of such smartphones typically change every year or two as newer models are introduced into the marketplace. In addition, after-market protective covers typically lose their shape and cause the protective cover to offer less protection than at the original time of purchase, especially if the cover includes a rubber or flexible portion that is disposed inside or outside of a harder housing shell—and even more so if the protective cover is designed to be removable.
Today, it is possible for a manufacturer to bond or fuse an additional protective cover or further housing layer to a device, but it typically requires the protective cover to be manufactured and adhered to the device during the manufacturing process. Typically, the device manufacturer will run a separate production line for a specified number of devices that the manufacturer wants to sell with a ruggedized outer housing. Such a ruggedized protective cover requires melting a protective compound onto the device outer shell when the housing is being created in the first place and before sensitive electronic components are installed within the housing. Such process typically requires high temperature to melt and bond the protective cover to the target device outer shell. This process requires special molding forms that can withstand high temperature. The protective cover is melted onto the target device's outer shell.
There is thus a need in the industry for being able to provide and create a non-removable protective cover or skin to an after-market device. Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional systems and further needs and solutions provided by the processes, systems, and products disclosed herein will become apparent to one of skill in the art after reviewing the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings, claims, and detailed description that follow.